Locals consider a run for Congress—if and ONLY if Woolsey retires
by Ronnie Cohen
While Lynn Woolsey begins her 10th term in Congress, candidates who may run for her seat—when and if she decides to retire—are positioning themselves in the starting blocks.
The Petaluma Democrat announced last month that she is considering making her 10th congressional term her last. Woolsey said she would decide by June if she will retire after 20 years in Congress.
Assemblyman Jared Huffman wasted no time broadcasting his intention to run for the 73-year-old congresswoman’s seat if she does not seek re-election.
“I’m not being coy about it,” the San Rafael Democrat said in a telephone interview last week. “I’m actively seeking support to make a very strong run if Lynn indeed decides to retire.”
Five other Democrats also declared interest in the job if—and only if—the unabashedly liberal Woolsey retires. The five—Marin County Supervisor Susan Adams, West Marin anti-war author Norman Solomon, state Sen. Noreen Evans of Santa Rosa, former Petaluma mayor Pam Torliatt and Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane—all said they were considering a run in 2012 if Woolsey steps aside.
Supervisor Adams said her supporters have urged her to campaign for the seat, but a decision would be “premature.” News reports have suggested Supervisor Charles McGlashan might be a contender too. He called the reports flattering but said he had no intention of seeking the national office.
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Co-chairs of the Marin Green Party County Council (photo of Nancy Lopez Mancias by Bill Hackwell) |
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Two members of the Green Party—San Rafael residents Nancy Mancias and Marnie Glickman, who both chair the Marin Green Party County Council—are also contemplating running in the June 2012 congressional primary.
Mancias, 40, said her goal would be to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “It’s important that Sonoma and Marin continue to speak out against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are bankrupting our two counties,” she said. Glickman, 39, said her top priority would be to fight global warming by reducing carbon emissions and creating green jobs. “Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation, and I will stand firm in my defense of the earth, while putting people back to work in green jobs,” she said.
The 2012 congressional election will be the first under California’s open-primary law. Passed by voters in June 2010, the measure, Proposition 14, pits contenders of all persuasions against one another in a primary, and the top two vote getters will battle it out in the following general election.
“I think the open primary, top-two system is going to reward the candidate who can appeal most broadly to voters, the people who try to represent the entire district rather than individual constituencies,” Huffman said. “And I think I’m better positioned to do that than anyone else.”
Green Party members fear open primaries will hinder the advancement of third-party candidates. Fairfax Mayor Larry Bragman, a voice for Marin County Greens, called Proposition 14 “unconstitutional” and said he worries the initiative will muzzle minority voices.
“Proposition 14 will effectively extinguish the small-party options open to voters and may be the death knell of multiparty democracy in the state of California,” he said.
In Woolsey’s largely liberal congressional district, the open primary might lead to two Democrats facing off in a general election.
Another factor influencing the race for Woolsey’s successor could be a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts. The 6th District now includes all of Marin County and much of Sonoma County.
Several of the possible Democratic candidates, as well as Republican Jim Judd (Woolsey handily beat him last year), said they wanted to see the congressional district’s new boundaries before committing to running the race. “The decision to run is going to be based on how the redistricting goes,” said Judd, a 54-year-old fiscal conservative who owns a Sonoma County manufacturing company and views the national debt as the nation’s worst enemy.
“I’ve been an independent voter my whole life,” Judd said in a telephone interview. “I registered Republican to go up against Lynn Woolsey. I feel that both parties in the past—obviously the jury is still out on this new Congress—elected officials that tend to put themselves up on a pedestal like they’re elitists.”
So far, Huffman, a former Marin Municipal Water District board member and a former Natural Resources Defense Council attorney, leads the pack as the only definite contestant in a race to succeed Woolsey. At the end of 2012, Huffman, 46, will have served six years in the state Assembly and will have termed out of his seat.
A crowded field of Marin candidates helped Woolsey leap from the Petaluma City Council in 1992—dubbed the year of the woman because women took legislative seats throughout the nation—to Congress, where the former welfare mother won the seat Barbara Boxer held for 10 years.
At the moment, the candidate field looks as if it could be crowded in both Marin and Sonoma counties. Politicians who have so far expressed interest in Woolsey’s job would bring a range of expertise and a variety of proposed agendas to the task.
A nursing professor, Supervisor Adams, 54, said she would focus on additionally reforming healthcare, including getting access to care for undocumented immigrants.
“With my background in healthcare and with my experience in local government, I think I would offer the community of the 6th District another viable option,” said Adams, who is beginning her third term as a Marin County supervisor.
Solomon identified himself as the only candidate with foreign-affairs experience. The media critic, who lives in Inverness Park and founded the nonprofit Institute for Public Accuracy, visited Baghdad three times, once with actor Sean Penn, during the run-up to the war in Iraq. Like Mancias, Solomon maintains a strict anti-war stance and promises to work to end the conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He believes that trying to end the war in Afghanistan will help him befriend Republicans.
“It’s war and peace that to me circumscribe our realities here,” Solomon, 59, said in a telephone interview. “Close to $2 billion—with a ‘b’—from Marin County taxpayers alone have contributed to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 10 years. We’re being depleted of resources for state and local government services. We need to redefine what national security is. It’s not national security to have our schools crumbling. I would argue that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made us less secure.”
Most prominent among the Sonoma County potential contenders is Noreen Evans, who served six years in the state Assembly and was just installed in the state Senate. The Santa Rosa Democrat said she is undecided about launching a national campaign so soon after finishing a statewide one.
“Senator Evans is just getting settled here into her office in the Senate,” Chris Moore, Evans’ communications director, said last week. “We literally just moved in the furniture, and we don’t have paintings on the walls. She’s very excited about the position here in the Senate. With that said, she wouldn’t want to pass up an opportunity for an open congressional seat. It’s something that she’s considering.”
Torliatt, 43, spent 18 years sitting on Petaluma’s planning commission and city council, with the last four as mayor. In November, she lost an ugly race for Sonoma County supervisor to David Rabbit. A last-minute hit piece targeted Torliatt for supporting sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants.
The November loss, which left Torliatt without a seat, was not her first. In 2006, the slow-growth progressive Democrat lost her bid for the state Assembly to Huffman.
Asked if she would run for Congress in 2012, Torliatt said, “I wouldn’t count me out.” She said she would be considering the district’s new boundaries as well as the field of candidates before deciding whether to join the race.
Zane also does not want to be counted out. But the Sonoma County supervisor elected in 2008 stressed her desire to focus on her current job. “Our constituents deserve 100 percent of our attention right now,” said the former head of the Sonoma County Council on Aging. “Rather than looking at the next rung on the political ladder, it’s important to focus on the jobs at hand.”
Zane, 51, nevertheless added that supporters have encouraged her to run, and she will consider it if Woolsey retires. However, she pointed out, Woolsey’s retirement remains in question.
And it does. Last month, Woolsey, one of the most liberal members of Congress, announced that she was considering retiring at the end of 2012. She said she made the announcement to allow possible contenders time to organize campaigns for her seat.
And though the progressive Democrat from Petaluma is considering retirement at the end of her current term, when she will be 75, her press secretary, Carl Rauscher, said, “She may very well run again.”
